


A Heart for a Heart

by TheHeartOfAMandalorian



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Depressed Din, Din Djarin Whump, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Grogu in thoughts only :(, Hurt Din, Hurt/Comfort, Mandomera at the end, Metaphorical meets literal heartbreak, Poor Din, Torture, Whump, Xi'an being disgusting and non-con touching (not rape), Xi'an being stabby, post-season 2 events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:34:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28506036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHeartOfAMandalorian/pseuds/TheHeartOfAMandalorian
Summary: Din has fallen into a depression and identity crisis after separating with Grogu. An old acquaintance makes an appearance.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda, The Mandalorian & Care Dune, The Mandalorian & Xi'an
Comments: 16
Kudos: 79





	A Heart for a Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [APendingThought](https://archiveofourown.org/users/APendingThought/gifts), [MiJo71](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiJo71/gifts).



In the damp, dark alley of a littered Mid Rim metropolis, he stares at the metal ball, shifting the smooth, unchanging metal shape between the fingertips of his worn leather gloves. He reminisces, back to when the choking hazard was within the little womp rat's grip - small green hands clawing onto it and large dark eyes staring in awe as if it were the single most interesting thing in the galaxy. 

Now no green hands or dark eyes are anywhere near. It seems like just yesterday when he had stared into that endearingly wrinkly face for the first time with bare eyes. 

His aching heart plummets.

Din doesn't even know _where_ the kid is. The kid - _his_ kid - is gone. 

Tears fringe his eyes, wavering his vision. He feels the unhealing wound around his heart gape afresh. 

But he tries to tell himself it's for the better. The Jedi had proven himself an exceptionally worthy protector of the child, having mowed through those dark trooper droids like they were nothing but a plasticine toy army and all without so much as breaking a sweat. Yet, he cannot ignore the way his heart aches, feeling the dark heavy dread of the very high likelihood he'd never see the child again. It's not like he could protect the kid, not the way the Jedi could. 

He tells himself he did the right thing. But it didn't make his heart hurt any less or eyes weep any less. 

_Crying_. 

He hasn't cried since, well, not since he was a boy. Yet here he is, tears in his eyes.

Peli's words suddenly breach his thoughts: _"Stop your crying or you'll rust."_

He huffs a teary laugh - that crusty mechanic loved the kid. She'd be heartbroken too if she knew.

He lifts his helmet to wipe his eyes. 

No one's looking, but even if they were, he's not sure it would even matter. He's not even sure _who_ he is anymore. His Creed felt broken. He felt broken. At least that's how it would be considered by The Armorer. _Wouldn't it?_ He had shown his face. The Creed explicitly states he cannot show his face to any living being - surely for his _aliit_ [family] this rule was different, malleable...but Gideon, that monster, murderer of his Covert, had seen his face. It was surely a breach.

He didn't regret what he did for the kid - the child was his duty and perhaps his life's greatest purpose - the kid with the largest green ears he'd ever seen was the only being he loved more than anything in the universe. The only being he feels that he could ever love so much. 

_His son._

And the loss of his greatest love has left him eviscerated, empty. He hasn't been taking care of himself, his armor is tarnished, like a physical representation of the depression within. All his maintenance supplies had been on the Crest. But that was no excuse.

He feels unworthy to wear the armor, from his lax care to the broken Creed. Armor that feels heavy and weighed down with the sins of his past. Yet he still wears it like the _hut'uun_ [coward] he is, hiding. Hiding from himself and others - he doesn't know who he is without the armor, without the kid. He tucks the metal ball back into his belt, out of sight.

And now he finds himself in the trenches of a seedy metropolis on a Mid Rim planet. He steps out into the dirty, crowded street. People bump into him - people NEVER bumped into him; they usually steered clear by at least a few arms length. He must really look like a womp rat, or the people here simply don't care - neither thought makes him feel any better. He just needs to find a job to keep his mind and body moving...that or trouble. Trouble would be the easiest way to punish himself for letting himself become so attached, so depressed at the inevitable separation and for throwing his Creed into the wind.

"Hey Mando," a familiar purring voice sends his hair standing on end. 

_Trouble it is._

He turns, but before he can react, a jolt runs hot and rigid through his body, knees buckling just before all goes black.

  
  


\------------

  
  


"Mandoooooo...Mando?"

His eyes adjust and he feels a headache blossom under his temples. Purple skin and lekku slowly come into focus.

"Xi'an," his tongue spits her name like a curse - behind him, he feels cuffs on his wrists, arms looped around a metal pole his back braces against. His knees and ankles are shackled too, attached to mounting points in the duracrete floor and keeping him from moving more than a centimeter. Surprisingly, all his armor remains from what he can tell.

"There he is! Surprised you even cared enough to remember my name at all," she hisses.

She toys with one of her favorite blades between her fingertips, one she had custom made during their time together with Ran and all.

She clicks her tongue at him, "Look at what disrepair you are in. Your fellow Mandos would be _so_ disappointed," she smiles wickedly, her words just like the knives she's so very fond of. She comes closer, and taps her blade against the cuirass. "I mean just look at the rust. And I even got the jump on you. I mean I'm good, but I at least expected a fight."

Truth be told, most of the fight within him had left in the arms of that Jedi on Gideon's ship all those months ago. 

"Unbind me and I'll give you a fair fight," but there was no conviction to his words. He wasn't even that surprised that Xi'an had located, let alone bested him.

"I wanted you to be awake for this part." She comes even closer, and he doesn't dare flinch. 

_He deserves this._

Her face is incredibly close to his visor, every pore in her purple skin visible in the cold dusky light of whatever hellhole she brought them to. She traces her blade over his disheveled beskar, a tinny whine of metal on metal fills the air as it travels to the edge of his cuirass. She slips the blade underneath and uses it as a crowbar to lever the beskar from its attachment points. With a few "snicks" the cuirass comes free and she carelessly tosses it aside. It clatters loudly against the hard duracrete floor, echoing and taunting him as a failure. As _dar'manda_ [no longer Mandalorian, a loss of identity in that heritage]. 

_Was he worthy of the armor any longer?_ He supposes he hadn't been since he showed his face on that Imperial ship.

"Where's that little green pet of yours? Lose him? Or did you get him killed too?" she squeaks with a delighted giggle.

_Mind games._

"What are you going to do to me?" he finds he doesn't really care, but the words fall out anyway, anything to get her off the topic of the kid. He knows there's no way out of whatever she has planned. She has him bound impossibly well - she's obviously learned. "Surprised you're not going for _other_ things first." She had always wanted him that way, but he had always refused.

She giggles, but there's no humor to it. "It's not sex I want, Mando." She roughly opens his flak vest and he can feel his heart instinctively start to thump, coursing useless adrenaline through his veins, ready to fight, but unable. Perhaps this is what he deserves, for everything failed - his covert, his Creed, all the horrible things he'd done. Perhaps _this_ was his atonement. 

_Why had he ever thought he could be happy with the kid?_ Bad things always found him. It's what he deserved.

She detaches his cape and then runs the knife through his flight suit, ripping it open and exposing his bare chest, the cool air settling against his skin was proof of that.

"What do you want, Xi'an?" he feels his anxiety course unevenly through his veins. He just wanted whatever she had planned over with. He knows whatever _it_ is will be exceptionally unpleasant.

"For you to pay," she says simply, punctuated by a sorrowful look in her otherwise cold eyes. "For Qin and for _what_ you did to me."

_There was no escape._

She runs her impossibly sharp blade down the center of his chest - he can feel the sting as it just barely cuts the skin, slicing easily even through the patches of old scar tissue.

"Seems you do bleed, Mando," she studies the trickling line down his heaving sternum, grinning with satisfaction. She then leans in and licks the trail of blood over his now racing heart, completely repulsing him - he feels he might vomit. He didn't want to give her the satisfaction of a reaction, but he cannot control his panicked heart. She turns her head and leans in, her intrusive, cone-shaped ear digging into his chest. He knows she's listening to it - the rapid thundering within. And he doesn't even need to look down to know a sick smile of satisfaction rests on her lips at how she is getting a reaction, even if it's one of pure disgust.

A few moments pass as she just rests against him, his chest pounding from anger and revulsion. She just had to make this session of hers as uncomfortable and invasive as possible in her own demented way. 

"And it seems you do have a heart after all, Mando," she sadistically giggles, running a hand over his abdomen and causing his skin to crawl. "It's really ticking away in there." She keeps her ear pressed over it. "Tell me, Mando, did it always beat so fast for me?"

He's so repulsed, bile creeps up his throat, burning beneath his bleeding sternum.

"Just get it over with it," he grunts, knowing she's delighting in the fact she has finally reached beneath his armor. And the internal reaction she's eliciting.

"Oh but then we'd miss out on all the fun," she withdraws her head from him. In a blink, her knife is at his throat, pressed precariously against his pulsating carotid, forcing his chin upward. He swallows hard and she grins, watching his larynx jump nervously all for her. His strong pulse moves the blade in her hand, and soon blood trickles.

Swiftly withdrawing the knife, she leans in and attaches her vile lips to the nick, and suckles. Mando groans from the disgusting act along with the overstimulating sensation. 

"Stop!" he commands.

In reply, the blade is back under his chin, under the helmet. He's surprised she hasn't removed it yet. It wouldn't even matter at this point.

"You'll get what you deserve soon enough," she gloats, sharp canines glinting in the light.

Straddling his tethered legs, she leans forward into his neck again, and bites down, hard. He involuntarily jolts against his restraints at the sharpness. A strangled, pained moan escapes as she languidly runs her tongue over the punctures from her fangs. 

"You like that Mando - pain and pleasure?" she purrs into his neck, then without warning rakes her claws into the sliced skin over his sternum.

He cries out from the surprise of it more than anything. She then digs in her nails over his frantically thumping heart, the claws sink into his flesh until the pads of her fingertips touch his skin. She grips with force, but he can tell that she's holding back.

"Enough of that. That's not why we're here," her mood changes in an instant, and she releases her wicked grip.

"You murdered Qin."

 _He supposes he did_ , he thinks as he catches his breath, feeling blood trickle from his wounds.

"For that you will pay with your life," she says flatly. 

Her face then comes near his visor and he hears her blade _tink_ against the helmet's cheek. "I want to see the light leave your eyes, Mando," she growls. "This is _The Way,_ " she mocks as her hands reach to lift his helmet, slowly inching it upward - he's blinded as she lifts it halfway, just enough to expose his lips. Suddenly he feels something ghosting against them and then they're overtaken by her lips. He tries to turn away, but she steals a nauseating kiss anyway.

He wants to vomit, but there's nothing but emptiness within - nothing to purge. She lifts the helmet the rest of the way and tosses it over her shoulder, even more carelessly than the cuirass, and it clanks over the hard, dirty ground.

"There you are," her beady eyes dart all over his exposed face; then she grabs his jaw, turning his face to study it at different angles. He's too tired to even fight it. "My, my, my, Mando. I imagined a thousand different faces you might have. But this. Oh, why would you ever hide such a handsome face? A shame really."

She roughly releases his face, then her blade is back on his chest. He feels the blade over his skin again, senses heightened without the barrier of his helmet. This time the sharpness runs right toward his heart. He knows she wants to end him this way. It's fitting really. He broke her heart, took away her only remaining family and now she wants to break his, although a little more literally. She takes her time picking her entry point, his heart involuntarily skipping and jumping as if trying to escape its inevitable fate. 

"Just do it. Get it over with," he exhales, looking straight forward at his helmet laying upon the filthy floor.

"As you wish," she purrs, face filled with hate. On cue, she begins her incising, agonizing and slow. She leans in, her face close to his, looking into his eyes. He closes them, trying to hold back a scream brimming within his throat as white hot searing pain burns at the edges of his vision. 

"Look at me," she hisses, then twists the blade between his ribs to force his attention.

He looks at her, giving into her sick demand. The scream finally breaches as he feels the blade sinking in farther, millimeter by millimeter, every second of agonizing pain representing a misdeed done, a soul he'd snuffed out - every aching, hammering beat of his heart inching him toward the last.

He thinks of his parents, the Covert, Kuiil, I.G., Grogu, Cara, Omera. 

" _Ni ceta_ [I'm sorry]," his ragged voice pleads to all of them. _Please forgive me._

The knife must be at his heart by now. This is his death. Not a warrior's one, no - he didn't deserve one. This was a death befitting of everything horrible thing he's done, the innocents he'd murdered with the woman currently ending him, and exposing the Covert, leading Kuiil to his death, the breach of his Creed. Yet, the loss of his son was somehow still a greater pain in his heart than the blade currently sinking into it. And now he has nothing left. But pain and his death.

_Dar'manda_.

.

  
  


.

  
  


.

  
  


BOOM!

Din's ears ring. Dust hangs heavy and red flashes catch his vision in the disorientation. Xi'an is no longer in sight.

"Inmate 34668, surrender now!" the familiar voice of an ex-shock trooper greets his senses. 

Through the settling dust, he hears grit crunch underfoot, followed by the unmistakable thud of flesh and bone hitting duracrete. Xi'an's snarls and screams of frustration break through the cloud of debris. 

"I.G. unit, take her back to the transport," Cara orders, her kneeling form slowly becoming visible as the air clears.

"Yes, Marshal Dune," the familiar-looking droid grabs a bruised Xi'an as Cara shifts her knee from the Twi's back. The I.G. unit forces the prisoner to her feet and promptly cuffs her.

The vile Twi'lek glares at Din. "You got lucky this time, Mando. Next time you won't be!!" the Twi'lek shrieks over her shoulder, fighting against the I.G. droid as he marches her forward out the jagged entrance they created moments before.

"Mando!" Cara suddenly gasps, eyes fixated upon his chest. 

He follows her line of vision, downward. The blade is still lodged in his chest, moving up and down with his jackhammering heartbeat. 

"Cara," his weak voice rasps, about to pass out as his adrenaline wanes. 

"It's gonna be ok, buddy," she falls to his side, and with a med pack already open she grabs a scanner. "I've seen much worse." 

He's fully certain that that was a factual statement.

"Dammit, Mando, how could you let that crazy Twi so close to your soft parts?" she sweeps the scanner over the area, studying intently. "Somehow, it didn't pierce your heart," she reports, stashing away the device. "This isn't gonna feel too good."

He nods permission, knowing what she has to do. She carefully grasps the bobbing handle, steady and careful to not push it any deeper.

"On three," she says and he nods.

"One...two," she yanks it out in a blink.

Din cries out from the sudden sharp pain and soon Cara's hand is back over the wound with a large bacta pad.

"You said on three," Din hisses, chest still heaving, heart punching against his ribs.

"It's out, ain't it?" she grouses back.

He huffs a laugh at his comrade, grimacing from pain the act of a laugh causes. The marshal quickly undoes his handcuffs then leg restraints and he slowly moves his aching limbs.

"Thank you," he tells her and she glances at him, giving a nod. His pulse gradually calms as the medicine seeps farther into the stab wound that narrowly missed his heart. She finishes up the rest of the first aid on his chest and the nicks on his neck, but he knows he still needs a med center.

"Let's get you outta here," she states. Slowly, arm over her shoulder, she assists him to his feet, then helps him don his gear again and, most importantly, his helmet. "Don't be so reckless next time. You have a lot of people who care about you," she looks at him, her tone uncharacteristically serious. 

_Were those tears in her eyes?_

He nods, feeling his own eyes water, blaming it on the dust from her explosive entrance. He won't lose sight again of what's important - of all he still has.

"Plus, I was back on Sorgan for a visit. A certain beautiful widow misses you," she says teasingly.

Suddenly his heart is racing for an entirely different reason. 

"I think you need some R&R. They said they'd be more than happy to see you again," she smirks at him.

"Thanks Cara." He limps along with her, trying not to jar his healing heart. He knows some time visiting the backwater skughole, particularly its kind widow, would do his tattered soul some good.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the darkest/most disturbing thing I've written. I felt Din needed a catharsis after Season 2. Well, back to Mandomera fluff for me!


End file.
